At his Dim Sum 2.0 dinner in New York last night, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis congratulated Silicon Alley Insider blogger Dan Frommer on his boss's fundraising abilities. Calacanis said he'd heard Blodget raised $12 million for the New York tech blog. Frommer asked Calacanis if he meant $3 million to $5 million, as TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington reported yesterday. No, Calacanis said, he'd heard $12 million from one of the investors.

Then Calacanis turned away from Frommer and spotted me. A look of recognition came over his face. "I just made all that up," he told me. Was he covering a slip? Or toying with Frommer — and extending the gag to me? Or seeing if he could spread a rumor sure to drive Arrington, his TechCrunch40 conference partner, completely bonkers? Calacanis is known to invent stories just for the fun of it. I asked SAI managing editor Peter Kafka. "On the record," he told me, "we're going to take the $12 million and buy a third of TechCrunch. But don't tell anyone!"